James wrote:Science cannot function at all unless it accepts that some things are in FACT real

Science does not investigate reality but observable phenomena and specifically their properties and capabilitiesWhether they are real or not is not a question it can answer since ontology pertains to philosophy not to science

Phenomenon is a subcategory of reality, not separate from it.

Prismatic567 wrote:Agree. How come you are so smart?

How come you are not?

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

So when you say that something is "real", what are you saying? Real for you, but perhaps not real for me??

Are my thoughts, beliefs or nightmares real for you? They are for me. Yet both mine and yours are drawn from the same pool of existence.

Yes, your dreams are real to me. You experience them and thus know of them far more than I, but that doesn't change whether they are real to me. I don't experience the back side of the Moon, yet it is still real to me .. and everyone.

Reality does not equate to experience. Experience is more related to perception.

Anomaly654 wrote:

Similarly charge objects "repel" (migrate away from each other). But the substance of the charge itself aggregates. Positive affectance aggregates positive affectance. Once positive particles are formed, each positive particle will maintain its independence from the others by migrating away

Why does positive, negative or neutral even exist?

Positive is above average amount of PtA, negative is below average, and neutral is the average. Particles form from all three states.

Anomaly654 wrote: Not sure what you mean by “substance of the charge”…do you mean charge itself distinct from the affectance charge endues?

The substance of charge is the affectance that is at a higher or lower average (to the ambient) PtA level. Random affectance, being completely fluid, behaves differently than affectance particles, clusters. Particles have inertia, resilience, and size and charge limits. Due to the charge limits, similarly charged particles migrate away from each other (aka "repel"). Random affectance is only limited by infinity, so adding more higher level PtA into a cloud of a high PtA random affectance field is easy. And the field delays the passage of any such addition more than neutral or negative, causing an accumulation. If the accumulation gets too great, the density factor causes a particle to form, after which no further high PtA can be added to the region and the particle migrates toward lower PtA levels (migrates toward a negative particle if one is around).

Anomaly654 wrote:

Smaller truths accumulate into an ontology, a singular understanding.

This makes sense to me if you mean truth accumulates to larger pools or bundles of truth-bearing entities for minds to apprehend. In my thinking intellectual operation [or “living information” or consciousness] is fragmentally falsified, hindering ability to unite fully with descriptive or prescriptive truths--though the mechanics of each are recognizably different.

When I say "ontology", I am referring to the collection of coherent thoughts that are believed to be descriptions of the fundamental nature of reality. There can be many different ontologies just as there can be different languages. The ontologies might not be actually true to reality. That would be a different issue. General Relativity and Quantum Physics are ontologies that are only true in separate specific circumstances. In most cases, usefulness is more relevant than trueness.

Anomaly654 wrote:

One should never mix ontologies, just as the universe never mixes similarly charged particles.

Isn’t this your way of articulating the factual-moral divide? I can see developing ontologies along different lines, but at the end of the day material beings routinely make ethical decisions and hold moral beliefs, so there must be a connection somewhere.

I didn't mean it that seriously. I only meant that if you mix ontologies (which people often do) misunderstandings and confusions arise and the mental affectance (PHT) dissolves the ontological structure into a random field of thought rather than solid foundations of understanding. Such is a social engineering technique for disrupting cultural paradigms (most famously Moses vs the Egyptians).

The notion of PHT is interesting, haven’t had time to try to follow it through. But seems to me both PtA and PHT need an organizational principle or blueprint, for affectance to produce symmetrically coherent points or for PHT to build to consistent, lucid rules of morality.

I thought that I had spelled that out already.

Anomaly654 wrote:Because I see truth itself as the source of energy or force, the essence or meaning of truth is organizational stability. In fact, pardon for projecting my definitions on your construct, but PtA and PHT seem good candidates for two aspects of the same truth-force to me. The trick is find the point of convergence.

I use the word "truth" to refer to thoughts or statements that accurately describe reality, "true to reality". A thought in a mind is a small polyparticle of PHT (a word being a monoparticle of PHT). I'm not sure what you mean by "find the point of convergence".

Anomaly654 wrote:BTW, I was thinking; seems to me it might be easier to grasp AO if some 3 dimensional presentations of its mechanisms could be produced. Not sure of degree of difficulty.

By "3D" do you mean physical 3D models? Or video 3D films?

That is a "3D" emulation of an affectance field. It is more or less what "empty" space would look like if one could see affectance. Realize that there are countless millions of photons passing by in front of your eyes all the time that are invisible to you.

An emulated particle forming in "3D":

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

James wrote:Phenomenon is a subcategory of reality not separate from it

Not all phenomena is actually real so some is separate from it

If it is not real, why would Science want to have anything to do with it?

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

Reality is not a scientific term. Science only deals with what is observed or perceived or experienced. What is physical and has property and dimension and capabilityWhat can be determined through intersubjectivity and potentially falsifiable hypotheses. But none of this equates to reality or what is real because there is no frame of reference for it. Descartes thought that he actually existed and therefore was real but no methodology exists that could determine this. For it is a default position given to be true which can not be objectively demonstrated. The apparent reality we experience could simply be an illusion too subtle or sophisticated for our brains to detect. We have no way of knowing which it is. Although I am a physicalist rather than an idealist. But this is an assumed position not an absolute or objective one

surreptitious75 wrote:Reality is not a scientific term. Science only deals with what is observed or perceived or experienced. What is physical and has property and dimension and capabilityWhat can be determined through intersubjectivity and potentially falsifiable hypotheses. But none of this equates to reality or what is real because there is no frame of reference for it. Descartes thought that he actually existed and therefore was real but no methodology exists that could determine this. For it is a default position given to be true which can not be objectively demonstrated. The apparent reality we experience could simply be an illusion too subtle or sophisticated for our brains to detect. We have no way of knowing which it is. Although I am a physicalist rather than an idealist. But this is an assumed position not an absolute or objective one

Ask any scientist if his experiment is real.See what he says.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

A scientist could not say whether their experiment was real or not because real is not a scientific concept as I have already statedWe use real to describe what we perceive and experience but there is no reliable methodology for determining if it is actually realSense organs do not experience everything and perception is entirely subjective and so we cannot be entirely certain about realityDespite this we take our experiences and perceptions to be true since they are so convincing that we accept them unconditionallyBut being convinced of something has no bearing on how true it actually is

surreptitious75 wrote:A scientist could not say whether their experiment was real or not because real is not a scientific concept as I have already statedWe use real to describe what we perceive and experience but there is no reliable methodology for determining if it is actually realSense organs do not experience everything and perception is entirely subjective and so we cannot be entirely certain about realityDespite this we take our experiences and perceptions to be true since they are so convincing that we accept them unconditionallyBut being convinced of something has no bearing on how true it actually is

We aren't talking about whether science is actually correct or true. We are talking about whether they believe in a reality with which they are experimenting. They know that even if they are wrong, they could only be wrong if there was a "right" to be wrong about. That "right" would be the "real". They cannot experiment on the unreal, nonexistent. And they know that. So they most certainly believe in a reality, whether they can ever understand it properly or not. Realism is the stance that there is "A Reality" to at least try to understand.

Else you have a really strange definition of "reality".

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

All I am saying is that science only investigates observable phenomena not reality. Less you are a solipsist or an idealist you will accept what you experience as reality and this is just as true of scientists as anyone else. But when they are doing actual science then the notion of reality becomes irrelevant. Science is the most exacting discipline outside of mathematics so terms have to be as precise as possible. Reality is a philosophical term as the nature of existence is philosophical while the study of observable phenomena is scientific. And this distinction is important as science and philosophy are different disciplines

surreptitious75 wrote:All I am saying is that science only investigates observable phenomena not reality. Less you are a solipsist or an idealist

You seem to have the terms a bit backwards.

The solipsist is the one who accepts ONLY what he experiences as the only form of reality. His "experiences" are all in his mind. There is no "outside reality". And that is the exact opposite of the realist who claims that there is a reality "out there"

surreptitious75 wrote:you will accept what you experience as reality and this is just as true of scientists as anyone else. But when they are doing actual science then the notion of reality becomes irrelevant.

Nonsense. A scientist has no need to study an unreal phenomenon. His entire purpose and intent is to discover what is or is not real. It is sheer nonsense to think that a scientist doesn't care about what is real or not.

surreptitious75 wrote:Science is the most exacting discipline outside of mathematics so terms have to be as precise as possible. Reality is a philosophical term as the nature of existence is philosophical while the study of observable phenomena is scientific. And this distinction is important as science and philosophy are different disciplines

Oh, for heaven's sake. Science is one particular philosophy, a philosophy of verification of hypotheses about Reality. Science studies the nature of reality by observing phenomenon. What did you think General Relativity was all about? And the statistics involved? And when they go to form a hypothesis, what is the hypothesis going to be about, if not about reality?

What is your definition of "reality"? Because you are not making any sense at all concerning scientists and what they do.

And how can a phenomenon even exist and yet not be part of reality?

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

As I had stated 'Philosophical Realism' a philosophical view which claim its view are representing reality. The claim of 'Philosophical Realism' that there is a reality independent of the human conditions in not a possibility and absurd.

Philosophically, a Philosophical Realist [like yourself] is merely an empirical idealist, as what is really 'real' to the so-claimed 'realist [philosophical] is only restricted to the processed sense-data in the mind. What is claimed as the real thing, i.e. outside the mind is merely a speculation and an impossibility to be real to the philosophical realist.

What is realistic must be justified as 'real' i.e.real = actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact."Exist" is not a predicate, so it must be predicated on some grounds.Thus 'real' must be predicated to a ground.

What is real to Science is Scientific Reality and never 'reality' per se.Scientific reality is always conditioned to its Framework and System. As far as scientific theories are concern, they do not represent reality per se but merely scientific reality.

What is real to the common layman is the conditioned by common sense.What is real to a philosopher is dependent on the philosophical perspective adopted for consideration.

A scientist who is a parent will not adopt a scientific reality framework when interacting with his/her babies, toddlers and those alikes. A scientist will only wears the scientist hat for his scientific works.

Show me a 'thing' you claimed as real that is absolutely & totally unconditioned by any Framework and System of Cognition. If you can do so you would have proven Kant's central thesis i.e. "no thing-in-itself" wrong.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

Prism wrote:What is real to Science is Scientific Reality and never reality per se YesScientific reality is always conditioned to its Framework and System YesAs far as scientific theories are concern they do not represent reality per se but merely scientific reality Yes

James S Saint wrote:Oh, for heaven's sake. Science is one particular philosophy, a philosophy of verification of hypotheses about Reality. Science studies the nature of reality by observing phenomenon. What did you think General Relativity was all about? And the statistics involved? And when they go to form a hypothesis, what is the hypothesis going to be about, if not about reality?

What is your definition of "reality"? Because you are not making any sense at all concerning scientists and what they do.

And how can a phenomenon even exist and yet not be part of reality?

You need to differentiate the perspective of the scientists and the Philosophy of Science.

Scientists per se do not give a damn with Philosophy of Science but merely will comply with the requirements of the Scientific Framework and System [Methods, peer pressure, etc.]Within the Scientific Framework and System there is only the ASSUMPTION of total reality [as defined by scientists not philosophers]. Science has no grounds to claim such an ASSUMEd total reality exists except for the parts of it that is proven from their theories.

As far as Scientists are concern, note surreptitious75's

Science only studies observable phenomena and nothing else Whether they be part of reality [as ASSUMEd] or not is irrelevant [really real] to science

From a philosophical POV, re Popper, scientific theories are at best polished conjectures [hypothesis] open to further polishing or be discarded. Thus whatever the concept of reality one attributed to Science, it is a conditioned reality never reality per-se.

Another point is, Science ASSUMED there is total reality but it is implied [humbly] such a total reality will never be known fully by Science.

What is the hypothesis going to be about, if not about reality?

Yeah, it is merely about an ASSUMED reality that is an impossibility to be really real but merely qualified to scientific theories which are at best polished conjectures.

I am a progressive human being, a World Citizen, NOT-a-theist and not religious.

Prismatic567 wrote: Science ASSUMED there is total reality but it is implied [humbly] such a total reality will never be known fully by Science.

Totally irrelevant (and thus "stupid").

Science's assumption is their philosophical stance - "Realism".

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

if you mix ontologies (which people often do) misunderstandings and confusions arise and the mental affectance (PHT) dissolves the ontological structure into a random field of thought rather than solid foundations of understanding. Such is a social engineering technique for disrupting cultural paradigms (most famously Moses vs the Egyptians).

Interesting, understandable concept. Given this insolubility, do PtA and PHT ever finally intersect in your understanding?

I use the word "truth" to refer to thoughts or statements that accurately describe reality, "true to reality". A thought in a mind is a small polyparticle of PHT (a word being a monoparticle of PHT). I'm not sure what you mean by "find the point of convergence".

You accept the status quo definition of truth as a relation. I think my approach—truth as an actual, dynamic quality that inhabits the essence of things and powers existence—has created a lot difficulties in trying to discuss the idea, probably also due to the fact [among others] that I tend to mix ontological and epistemological issues like most non-philosophers.

Point of convergence was just reference to subject matter of question in previous paragraph.

…seems to me both PtA and PHT need an organizational principle or blueprint, for affectance to produce symmetrically coherent points or for PHT to build to consistent, lucid rules of morality.

I thought that I had spelled that out already.

I think I’d better back off posting and study further, apparently am not putting pieces of AO together correctly.

I’ve been tinkering with this approach to understanding reality lately:

what what a thing ishow how things workwhy why things work as they do

such that in the world I picture….What truth as dynamic potential (force)How provides thatness to particulars by producing dynamic point-locales (from Particularity) [energies; particulars] populated by assets (from Value)[forces; qualities, attributes, properties] of two kinds: i. descriptive forces (physical properties) ii. prescriptive forces (moral properties)Why existence arranged due to truth’s fundamental organizing, coordinating nature (cohere, unify, fit together, unite, coalesce, etc.) Its forces form particulars (abstract and concrete) at point-locales, bundles of energies and forces whose interactions are an orchestration of internal or value-bearing energies (existents) with external force (Form). Truth as force forms factual energies, all of which bear descriptive assets, and some of which [organics] also bear prescriptive assets.

I’ve taken your descriptions of how AO uses PtA, PHT, Affectance [what] and its mechanics (above average ambient PtA=positive, below = negative, balanced = neutral, etc.) as "how", but don’t understand “why” it works the way it does. What and how are ontological parameters, maybe why is more epistemological. Another possible problem is that how (methodology) is often framed in or leads to intuitive “whys”, but these are just parts of how things work and isn't the sort of why I’m trying to understand.

In my thinking, placing truth as a fundamental cause [why] rather than relation [mental construct associated with “how”] seems to provide an explanatory model for the “what-how-why” prototype. If things develop naturally they just “are” and “why” need not exist; whats and hows are sufficient, why is just because stuff “is” and works as it does, e.g., laws of science. For example (though I know you have a disagreement in function here) to the observer, equal numbers of electrons and protons produce a stable atom due to attract-repel electromagnetic forces at work. The whats are protons and electrons as points combined into a particle, intuitive how is emf, with whats and hows populating each successive step. I just can’t grasp the why.

By "3D" do you mean physical 3D models? Or video 3D films?

I was watching your 2D videos when this thought crossed my mind, was trying to imagine Affectance formation and its fundamental workings from different angles or viewpoints on the grid. One interesting idea I got from videos—if I have it right—is that of the universe as a pool or grid of PtA essentially “holding still” while affectance “affect upon affect” is merely fashioned and populates different/successive points on the grid, suggesting the illusion of movement. Somewhat like the hole theory of electrical current [electron] “movement” in a conductor?

if you mix ontologies (which people often do) misunderstandings and confusions arise and the mental affectance (PHT) dissolves the ontological structure into a random field of thought rather than solid foundations of understanding. Such is a social engineering technique for disrupting cultural paradigms (most famously Moses vs the Egyptians).

Interesting, understandable concept. Given this insolubility, do PtA and PHT ever finally intersect in your understanding?

Well certainly. PHT could never exist without PtA.

And perhaps it would be helpful, from the information standpoint, to think about the fact that data propagation causes delays in data propagation, right (affect upon affect)? Congestion in data flow, as experienced by ISPs for example, forms a inertia that requires time to move from where ever it is (assuming one doesn't merely unplug the system). That is the exact same thing that is going on in physics that causes subatomic particles to exist that have inertia. Rather than data, the universe propagates affectance (or ultra-minuscule EMR pulses, if you prefer). The only difference is that data is a higher construct than mere affect and thus dependent upon lower constructs.

And that is the exact same way it is with PHT. The mind is a higher construct, requiring a lower construct to be built upon.

Anomaly654 wrote:One interesting idea I got from videos—if I have it right—is that of the universe as a pool or grid of PtA essentially “holding still” while affectance “affect upon affect” is merely fashioned and populates different/successive points on the grid, suggesting the illusion of movement. Somewhat like the hole theory of electrical current [electron] “movement” in a conductor?

Very astute and accurate. although do keep in mind that the "grid" is purely mental. A "point" is merely a chosen location, not an object. There is no set distance between actual points. They can be chosen to be infinitely close or miles apart. The universe is a continuum containing segregable "objects", not formed of objects.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

If meaning indeed flows out of complex connection making, being it physical, interactions between senses and events, or pure mentally -- words connecting with words -- then it would connect deep down to the fundamental, driving forces of life itself. From these connections, all importance and value can be derived, arriving back again at the usual dictionary definitions of meaning.

Don't know if En-De is around any more, but been mulling over how meaning would factor into the informational universe I play in. Along the lines of is there sound when an unobserved tree falls to the ground in the forest, I wonder: is meaning still there [in existents] without at least one mind to grasp it? For the moment I'm defaulting to "no", but certainly not dogmatically.

Among the many problems I have trying to bring concepts about information into focus is trying to find coherent paths for explaining, 1. information just is value, and, 2. value just is force or energy. Occurred to me last few days that meaning plays a glaring role here, need to find out where it fits. I'd hoped that reducing factual and moral reality to "value" might negate the p - ~p chasm, but it's still there, obviously. Not as harshly as we feel it in macro existence, but still there. View from meaning is the same: still divided.

I digress....could prescriptive(-force) and descriptive(-energy) values--whatever they might be when someone's not thinking about them--be meanings, just from another perspective? Assuming that evaluations/measurements of any kind, factual or moral, are fundamental value expressions/meanings---might meaning be values acquired and encoded or structured into information arrangements which are then decoded in cognition and mapped to language [words]? In this scenario meaning and value are identical...is meaning just another word for value? Just rambling.

If meaning indeed flows out of complex connection making, being it physical, interactions between senses and events, or pure mentally -- words connecting with words -- then it would connect deep down to the fundamental, driving forces of life itself. From these connections, all importance and value can be derived, arriving back again at the usual dictionary definitions of meaning.

Don't know if En-De is around any more, but been mulling over how meaning would factor into the informational universe I play in. Along the lines of is there sound when an unobserved tree falls to the ground in the forest, I wonder: is meaning still there [in existents] without at least one mind to grasp it? For the moment I'm defaulting to "no", but certainly not dogmatically.

Oh yes, I am still around - hopefully I will be around for a long time yet. I am in a stage of deep thought, plus I have been working on ways to improve my website - this all takes time and sometimes I get writers block or something like that.

encode_decode wrote:Eddington said, unity and consistency are ideals to be reached by convergence and he regarded seeking(in religion and philosophy) as more important than finding. I would have to agree since there is more to be learnt along the way than what is to be learnt at the end - the end is only useful for reflection where a few missed concepts might be caught - I am not trying to exclude deep analytical thinking however, rather I am highlighting the importance of seeking.

My state of deep thought is surrounded by the presence of seeking an answer to the question: what to write next? Eddington also says something similar to: the truth shines ahead as a beacon showing us the path.

I do enjoy your posts, very much. Interestingly your last post reminded me of a conversation I am having with Meno in the Reality vs Perception thread, of which I will not get into too much here. We are talking about a universal intelligence - perhaps it is the mind to grasp the fallen tree.

encode_decode wrote:I too am sure that the universe has memory - leading to a universal intelligence - this however I believe is highly mathematical in that flow is involved so that the memory is based on a dynamic of flow which means that the memories are stored in a unique way that we are not accustomed to. When 1 + 1 becomes 2 the 1's are still remembered if that makes sense. This requires some intuition too for that matter.

Perhaps just mental gymnastics . . . who knows ? . . this is the realm I have visited lately and I do desire a way out but only through resolution of what has sent me into deep thought. There are so many analogies that act as a beacon to show us the path.

I will think more about your post and post a more complete and pertinent answer.

I too am sure that the universe has memory - leading to a universal intelligence - this however I believe is highly mathematical in that flow is involved so that the memory is based on a dynamic of flow which means that the memories are stored in a unique way that we are not accustomed to. When 1 + 1 becomes 2 the 1's are still remembered if that makes sense. This requires some intuition too for that matter.

I enjoy you posts also...your answers never take paths I expect, but always provide fresh material to mull over.

I'll probably incur the wrath of James for this, but the quote above touched something I've been thinking about for some years now. I accept operating within a single reality in life currently lived, but have wondered for some time if intellects have some limited power to create their own reality--a sort of "stored" modification of reality not accessible (or only partly accessible) in this life. The creation would not be wholly separate from existing reality, but would be more like using the resources of an existing piece of land [the one reality] to plant crops and build houses of our own design [new additions to the one reality]. Your comment that the one's are still remembered after the equation is completed made me think this might be analogous to the way an author, for example, creates in her fictional characters and landscapes a quasi-reality which is somewhere reduced to mathematical precision whose meaning--which was taken and designed from materials at her disposal in this lived reality--is then stored and can later [after physical life] be accessed and participated in. This would hold true of all intellectual creativity (except that derived from the false, which would find no place in a landscape of true information). The idea is mostly theological, depends on a particular type of value available to intellectual operation that's absent in other kinds of intelligence and other qualifying data, but your comments about stored memory seem to fit the overall concept.

No need to comment on previous post: beyond my belief that meaning, like information, inheres all existents and is necessary component of fabric of reality, have no idea where to place it. Beginning to suspect it's too big to be "placed" anyway, which renders previous meanderings irrelevant.